Director's Corner

Regional Director Akira Yamamoto reports from the Americas Workshop on Linear Colliders (AWLC) 2014 held last month at Fermilab, US. A new official structure gives weight to contributions from scientists who used to juggle linear collider work and their projects “at home”, and in general he observes that big progress is common when a technology hasn’t reached a certain stage of maturity, but once it has, the steps become smaller, but almost more important.

Around the World

The expert panel to discuss whether to invite the International Linear Collider to Japan held its first meeting in Tokyo last week. The 17 experts reviewed the challenges pointed out in the recommendation submitted by the committee under the Science Council of Japan last summer, which pointed out the issues to be clarified for a decision to host the ILC in Japan. Their final report to Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will be prepared in the fiscal year 2015.

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Thanks to science, we get more for less. We get more features on a newer car model, more data and information stored on a computer, and all for the same or lowered cost.

That same principle applies to accelerator R&D, where improving the performance and lowering the cost can help open doors to new ideas.

The Department of Energy recently named Fermilab physicist and 2013 Peoples Fellow Anna Grassellino as a recipient of the prestigious Early Career Research Award for her work to develop particle accelerator cavities that have improved performance and are less expensive to operate.

Announcements

The 2014 International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS14) will take place from 6 to 10 October in Belgrade, Serbia and will be hosted by the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences. The workshop will start Monday morning and run until Friday around 13:00. The registration will open soon. Additional satellite meetings will take place in connection to the workshop, such as the FCAL workshop on 12 and 13 October.

This Linear Collider Workshop is the sixteenth in the series that started in 1991. It will be devoted to the study of the physics cases for future high energy linear electron-positron colliders, taking into account the recent results from LHC, and to review the progress and future plans for the ILC and CLIC detector and accelerator projects.

In the News

達増知事は文部科学省に対し、岩手県が誘致を進めているＩＬＣ・国際リニアコライダーについて、日本に誘致する方針を明確にし、国内体制を整えるよう要望した。(Tatsuya Tasso, the governor of Iwate prefecture filed petition to MEXT asking the Japanese government to clearly indicate Japan’s intention of inviting the ILC to Japan, and to prepare the framework in Japan.)

今、日本では国際リニアコライダー（ILC）の建設計画が進められている。CERNのLHCが環状であるのに対して、ILCは直線状だ。国内建設候補地は岩手県を中心に広がる北上山地。これが実現すれば、スイス・フランスのLHCと日本のILCを両輪に、宇宙の起源を究める実験が行える。(Curretly, the plan to construct the ILC in Japan is underway. While the LHC at CERN is cuercular shape, ILC is linear. The candidate site in Japan is Kitakami mountains in Iwate prefecture. If the ILC comes true, ILC will pursuit the study to uncover the mystery of the universe together with the LHC)

The report comes at a time when the field is confronted by exciting science questions and a wealth of possible experimental approaches to learning more about the universe around us. It also comes at a time when funding is very tight, necessitating tough decisions and clear priorities among these many excellent investment opportunities.

US physics plan High-energy physics in the United States must emphasize international collaborations to remain vibrant in the face of tight budgets, says a 22 May report from the US Department of Energy’s Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel. It stresses the need for the United States to remain a key player in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, and to stay involved in the proposed International Linear Collider in Japan. The panel also recommends recasting a proposed neutrino facility at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, as an internationally funded effort. See go.nature.com/fo5b8f for more

国際リニアコライダーについて、東北の産学官で組織する団体が国に早期実現を要望しました。(The industry-academic-government organization in northeast region of Japan, the Tohoku Conference for the promotion of ILC submitted the petition calling for the early realisation of the ILC to Japanese government.)

Top priorities over the next two decades include the US playing a vital role in upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland and building a long-baseline neutrino facility based at Fermilab near Chicago. The report also calls for US participation in the planned International Linear Collider (ILC), should the project commence.